


Were-Ferrets from Outer Space!

by kapakoscheisigma



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Lewis (TV)
Genre: AU, AU Catholicism, Aliens Made Them Do It, Alpha/Omega, AlphaRose!, Angst, Crack, F/M, I'm really sorry, Kidfic, Mpreg, Omega Verse, OmegaJames!, Twins, because someone will ship them sometime, discussions of gender politics, known also as Oxford, not so crack in second chapter, possibly OmegaDoctor, so it might be me, sort of, the nexus of the multiverse, there may be hobbits, were-ferrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-03 07:50:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1736963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kapakoscheisigma/pseuds/kapakoscheisigma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Rose materialize in an alternative Oxford where the Doctor literally trips over a dead body and is arrrested by the DI in charge...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Were Ferrets from Outer Space!

“Brilliant! Oh brilliantly brilliantly brilliant!” The Doctor clapped his hands with glee and danced around the console. The time rotor had ceased its movement following the dreadful noise of dematerialization. Rose, still delicate after the party they had crashed on Argolis, wished sometimes the Doctor could be a little less so enthusiastic and the TARDIS a bit less noisy. Didn’t Time Lords get hangovers?

“I love this place!” the Doctor went on, flicking a switch with a flick of a thin wrist. Rose looked out on a familiar skyline. She’d never been there, but it was used again and again on TV, iconoclastic. Medieval. Unchanging. So it could be anywhen then. Civil War, either of them, thirteenth or seventeenth! Or it could be centuries in her future, as she doubted the place would ever change.

“That’s Oxford,” Rose pointed out.

“Oh yes Rose, but not just any Oxford.” He tapped the display in front of him. Rose peered over his shoulder. Squiggles and circles and overlaid patterns. Gallifreyan. The TARDIS was not in a mood to share then.

“Well, what then?” Rose smiled, she couldn’t help be infected by the Doctor’s ridiculously over the top childlike enthusiasm. “Or should I say when then?”

“When is your time, but, oh I love it, we’ve moved sideways in time. I do love this universe so much!”

It took a beat to keep up with the Doctor’s explanation. “We’ve come back. I thought you said we couldn’t do that again. Will we meet anymore Cybermen?” Although Rose could do without Cybermen, she could do without seeing Mickey again more. Too painful. She looked at the monitor, looking for airships flying above the dreaming spires.

“Oh no, this is an entirely different universe. A different step, to the left, instead of the right. Or vice a versa!” Whilst he spoke he tapped various mysterious controls. A hypospray shot out of the console panel. He injected himself in the upper arm, through his suit jacket and shirt. “Can’t be too careful Rose,” he said, then grinned again. “This universe changes my biology. Can’t be too careful.”

“What’s that for then?”

“Precautions, of course, prevention is better than the alternatives. Bit old for the patter of tiny Time Tot feet at 900, wouldn’t you say?”

Rose grinned back. Sometimes she could never tell if the Doctor was serious or not. She felt certain he had told her he didn’t want to get pregnant, but that was impossible, biologically impossible. Wasn’t it? Beside, he might kiss a bit, but when was the Doctor ever interested in... well, there had been Jack, but Rose suspected shagging Jack might just be one of those compulsory laws of the universe, like gravity.

The Doctor meanwhile, skipped down from the console, and grabbing his coat from the floor by the hatstand, where he had flung it after the party on Argolis, and flung it on as he swung open the doors.

 

~

 

As soon as he skipped out the Doctor tripped over a body, a dead body, with a jagged cut on its throat, blood spread out over its chest and the pavement. As Rose shut the TARDIS door hurriedly the Doctor appeared to be already arrested.

They were in Oriel Square, the tower of Christchurch looming over them, tourists were being prevented from entering the scene by police officers looking exactly as the ones in her own universe, except for the cameras some had on the shoulders of their stab vests. An ambulance was also there, two bored paramedics hanging around, and a young woman in a uniform of a bank clerk, sitting on the steps of the ambulance, covered in the blood of the dead woman and sipping a bottle of mineral water. The person to have discovered the body, apparently.

The sun was bright. Rose was never, ever drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster ever again as long as she lived. She’d had some hangovers in her time, but this was hell...

All the while she watched the proceedings, the Doctor sat cross-legged, on the pavement. He had smiled and charmed and had failed. He hated waiting, staying still.

The constable had explained they were not under arrest, yet, but they had to wait for the senior CID officer to arrive. First more uniformed police arrived, then a pathologist and scene of crime officers in white over suits. Then a rather cute, very tall blond in a designer suit and nice shoes arrived. He had a softly spoken posh voice and talked to the officer who had not arrested them, and then the pathologist, a short, rather angry blonde woman. He came over to them and apologized for the wait and asked them what they were doing by the body after it had been discovered.

Another car, a blue Vauxhall Astra – Rose was struck by how identical this universe was, how could it be another? Surely she lived only 60 miles up the M40? Sometimes the Doctor... exaggerated, made things up, anything to keep the depression, guilt, loneliness, and boredom at bay. She hadn’t been with him long before she figured that out. And this version was a hyped up version of the one she’d first met!

“What the hell is that?” a grumpy older man, the one in Astra, demanded immediately of the tall, attractive, blond policeman. He had a northern accent. Newcastle Rose thought.

“Apparently it is an art installation. According to PC Baynes and Miss White it just appeared out of thin air.”

“What the... Okay. Let’s focus.”

He kept them waiting another half an hour, talking to the pathologist, maybe even flirting with her a bit, flirting with the blond man too, who turned out to be his sergeant. He was more professional with the uniformed and scene of crime officers. He seemed to deliberately ignore them as he spoke to Miss White, comforted her in the shock of finding the body, who had died with her waiting for the ambulance, got PC Baynes and his partner, WPC Lockhart, to take her home. He debriefed the paramedics, who then went, keen to attend their next shout.

It was like watching a detective drama at home, Rose thought, one of those boring procedural ones her Mum loved so much. Then it wasn’t.

DI Lewis didn’t like the Doctor’s explanations of refraction and optical illusion and art installations for his PhD. He liked even less the second explanation, the truth that it was a time machine and they had arrived after the woman was dead and the other one had called the ambulance. He had them arrested.

 

~

 

Rose sat in her cell for what felt like forever. Being locked up was an occupational hazard of travelling with the Doctor, but whereas a medieval cell, or futuristic or alien one, had exotic appeal, this, with her hangover no better, felt exactly the same as the stupid night one Christmas party after work, when she and her mates had decided to climb Tower Bridge after rather a lot of gin.

The only highlight had been when the Doctor had been asked to empty his pockets. She knew about the psychic paper and sonic screwdriver, of course, and he did keep random bits of alien tech and edible items in his pockets, but she had no idea how much fitted. Watching the tray fill with bits of metal, junk, string, a cricket ball the Doctor claimed to have been looking for for 300 years, a teddy bear, two penguin paperbacks, a banana, an apple, a paper bag full of jelly babies... there had even been a pot of lube, to which he had said, grinning at the custody sergeant,

“Not that I need it in this universe. Oh, you guys are brilliant. Such brilliant, innovative evolution...”

“That’s quite enough from you Sir,” had been the po-faced reply.

Half an hour later the Doctor had banged on her cell door as he had passed,

“Not long now Rose, just being taken to see Detective Inspector Lewis now. Have this cleared up in no time!”

That had been half an hour ago.

 

~

 

“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting for so long Miss Tyler,” Sergeant Hathaway apologized yet again as Rose re-laced her trainers. Although his apologies were said straight faced, with his rather neutral, blank poker face and polite, public school boy voice, Rose suspected he did actually not understand why he was talking her to his boss’ office and not an interview suite.

 

~

 

“So,” Rose said cheerfully as they climbed the stairs, “bit posh for the police, aren’t you?”

“Had to do something when they kicked me out of the Seminary,” he replied.

“You were going to be a priest? Yeah, I can see that.”

“Most people can’t,” he said, and he looked at her. He had pale greeny-blue eyes, cat shaped and expressive, she guessed, when not hiding behind a mask. He was the opposite of the Doctor, she decided. The Doctor babbled, presented this happy, cheerful, persona to hide his pain and loneliness, whilst this one shut down and hid it all. She bet he would look lovely if he grew his hair and smiled a bit. She’d love to see that long face animated and talkative.

 

~

 

“Rose!” The Doctor was sat crossed legged on a table, in front of a huge incident board. Many pictures, many victims, all in achingly pretty, cobbled medieval locations, all young, all with their throats ripped. Not cut or sliced, ripped. Rose remembered werewolves from the past, and haermavores from the future. He leapt up and hugged her.

“Trust you,” she whispered.

“Detective Inspector Lewis has asked me to assist with this investigation. I already have several ideas but I’m waiting to look at the forensics. I do need to visit all the scenes and we need a map. James. Another cup of tea? Want one Rose?”

Hathaway’s face darkened for a moment. Rose was sure he didn’t like the Doctor treating him like a tea boy, or taking his Inspector from him or taking over the investigation.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Lewis said. “And get us some sandwiches or something. And get the Doctor the maps we already plotted from my office.”

James fetched another huge incident board from the inner office; it was one huge map of Oxford with several red pins to mark the murders. He then stalked, long legged, out of the room. He had very long legs in his tight suit trousers. Rose wondered why there were no DCs. In the Met there would be dozens.

“The Inspector sent them out. This is going to be need to know stuff,” the Doctor said, answering her thoughts in his spooky way.

“Alien and weird then?" Rose grinned, coming up to stand behind the Doctor and Lewis to look at the victims. She felt a bit queasy but she wasn’t going to let the men see that.

 

~

 

The Doctor spent all night questioning Lewis, bringing stuff out of the Inspector’s mind that he hadn’t realized he’d noticed. He also poured over maps, the big one on the incident board and on the computer. He devoured witness statements, forensic and pathology reports. He treated James like a gopher and a tea boy, fetching reports and hard evidence and copious cups of tea in equal measure. Eventually Lewis crashed out on his chair at his desk in his inner officer, James slumped over his desk, equally asleep. Rose thought she had zoned out for a moment, but woke up asleep on the floor between Lewis and Hathaway’s desks. Lewis head was tipped back and he was snoring like pig whilst Hathaway was twitching and whimpering as if he was having a bad nightmare. Dealing with all those ripped out throats was bound to give bad dreams, but Rose felt it was more personal. She wanted to wake him and hold him, cuddle him and make him feel safe.

Stupid. She hardly knew him. She hoped she wasn’t missing Mickey. That would just be embarrassing.

She got up and went into the main office. The Doctor had purloined a microscope and a mini centrifuge from somewhere and had one of the desks set up as a mini lab. He was pacing in front of the incident boards muttering strings of numbers and something about phases of the moon.

She left him to it and went to find a ladies.

 

~

 

“A what?” Lewis demanded. His voice was still gruff with sleep, despite that an equally sleepy Hathaway been sent out for coffee and pastries. He also had a dark shadow on his face. So did the Doctor, but he often favoured what he obviously thought was fashionable stubble. He had great hair but Rose wished he shaved a bit more. James, however, perhaps because he was blond, had no sign of stubble. When she peered she saw the odd little fluffy tuft on his harp cheeks and chin. He struck her as far too old for bum fluff! It was cute though. As were his confused and scared eyes now. He had grasped what the Doctor meant immediately, she could see. He was bright. However, he didn’t like it. Who would?

“An alien. Or aliens. They don’t normally travel in packs, but we might be looking at a small family grouping. From the Tau Ceti system originally, displaced by the...” the Doctor coughed and looked away. “Never mind.”

“What Doctor? You better tell me.” Lewis demanded.

“There was a war. A Time War. The Doctor is a refugee too. Sort of,” Rose explained diplomatically.

“Okay. Refugees from a war. Fair enough. But I’m not sure UKIP would agree. But killing people is not on, alien refugees or no. Why would they do this?”

“Lycanthropy Inspector.”

“Werewolves?” Hathaway asked, looking slightly sceptical.

“A myth James,” Lewis said quickly and glared at the Doctor as if he had finally lost his patience with all he was being expected to believe. “We might all be descended from them, share DNA, but people becoming animals, that’s nonsense.”

“Like inside of my TARDIS? Or my heartsbeat? Inspector?”

“Aye. Well.”

That was why she was stuck in the cell for so long. The Doctor had shown Lewis to get him to believe him.

“We’re not talking wolves and we’re not talking people Inspector. Tau Ceti 4’s race are small, a bit like a dwarf but more delicate, bit less stocky, bit taller, bit like a pixie from your mythologies, but fatter with hairy feet...”

“A Hobbit?” James supplied helpfully.

The Doctor grinned. “Yeah, very like a Hobbit.”

“Great,” Lewis muttered.

“You said and not wolves Doctor?” Rose asked, thinking they needed to focus.

“More like, um...” the Doctor looked away and gripped the back of his neck, as he were embarrassed, which was ridiculous. Sometimes Rose thought that Time Lords had their embarrassment gene removed at birth. “A ferret,” the Doctor concluded.

“So. We’ve looking for a Hobbit or family of Hobbits that turn into feral ferrets that are ripping out the throats of language school students?” Lewis clarified with disbelief.

“Um. Yeah. Basically.”

“But the murders have been all week. And in the afternoon, early evening,” Hathaway said, obviously prepared to take on board their suspect faster.

“It’s the waxing moon, coming up to full, and the moon is rising at around 3.30pm. which is why I have til about three to find any trace of alien tech from my TARDIS and then we can stake them out, catch them before they act.”

Lewis and Hathaway looked at each other and shrugged. They already had six victims, and if the Doctor was right, another eight to go with the full moon that night and then a week of it waning...

“Sounds like a plan, then,” Lewis agreed. “Although how I sell it to Innocent, God only knows.”

 

~

 

Seven hours later saw Rose with the Doctor, Lewis, and Hathaway tracking three young ‘hobbit-ferrets’ through farmland – Rose couldn’t believe it, what city just turned into open country and farmland in the very middle, but they had gone past both medieval and shining new college building and suddenly were in the middle of fields of cows. They had been tracking them across the city from more field, called meadows, with a river, a canal and lots of horses, the only sign of human activity a train track and the odd train passing, again in what seemed to be the middle of rows of Victorian houses and pubs. Rose was beginning to see how easy in might be to believe in talking rabbits and rabbit holes leading to wonderful places in this city. She had travelled across the universe in time and space and yet here was something a tube and train ride from where she grew up and she never knew. But then, Oxford was not someone from the Powell Estate would ever dream of, even if they hoped for university and not a job in a shop...

They had started in Port Meadow, as the place of horses and bushes had been called, because the Doctor had tracked the alien energy signature there. He had even found the ship. Rose could see nothing, neither could Lewis, but as the Doctor babbled about light refraction and cloaking devices Sergeant Hathaway had picked up a large stick and threw it in the direction of a slight shimmer between to oak trees and a large holly bush, that seemed a little flattened and they all heard the clang as the wood hit a metal and bounced off. Only afterwards did Rose notice the squashed grass and felt an idiot, but not as much as Lewis did. He grew grumpier and took it out on poor James,

The Doctor had found a hatchway and opened it with his sonic screwdriver. He had been analysing the faults in the drive system on the flight deck, or cabin, as the ship was small, like a space RV really, when three creatures, very short, two squat, one willowy, brown skinned with pointed ears and arched eyebrow and two dressed in green and black tunics and trousers, one in a red and pink dress, had found them. The Doctor had frantically talked his way into trying to make them believe he wished to help, he could repair their drive interface, but all his babbling did was buy Rose and the two Oxford detectives time to get away. The Doctor soon followed them out of the hatch, yelling at them to run.

However, at some point through the meadow, as they all crossed the canal, getting wet during the process, the hunted became the hunters, and they were tracking the aliens.

It was during this tussle that the female pulled some kind of weapon on the Doctor and fired some kind of smoke or gas. James Hathaway threw himself in front of the Doctor, to Lewis’ obvious terror. She yelled a curse as she did so, something sexual and obscene that Rose was sure the TARDIS was not translating correctly.

James fell, choking and Lewis and the Doctor had caught him. Rose had seen this too many times, a good person, clever, at first suspicious of the Doctor, soon ready to die for him. The Doctor did not do this deliberately, she was sure. He was just so amazing and good it happened.

“James lad, hold on,” Lewis had said, cradling him and stroking his blond stubbly hair, and Rose could see real affection in the older man’s face. For some bizarre reason she felt momentarily jealous of that affection, as if Lewis had no right to it. That if anyone was going to stroke James’ hair it would be her. She had to shake her head to clear herself of her sudden possessiveness over someone she barely knew, even if she quite liked him and even, yes, fancied him a bit!

The Doctor had scanned him with his sonic screwdriver. “You’ll be fine. Promise. But you didn’t need to do that,” the Doctor said cheerfully, the kind of cheer Rose had seen him use time and time again to reassure someone everything was okay when it plainly probably wasn’t going to be. “Brilliant though. Thank you. And a clever weapon for certain types of people. A distraction, but not really any harm or hurt. Are you okay to stand?”

He had been and, although the hobbit things had had a head start, they tracked them to somewhere called St Giles – more ancient colleges and pubs and a church – and had been following them ever since. It was amazing how no one paid any attention, apart from tourists taking their photo. Rose supposed people dressed up as Hobbits all the time for the tourists or performance art or something. Oxford was a strange place. She wondered if it were so weird in her own universe, if she wasn’t already there. She could see no differences at all. Shops, cafes, brands, cars, logos, fashion, all were exactly the same! Sometimes the Doctor... lied!

At one point across the farm Lewis was leading, while Rose brought up the rear. The Doctor was talking urgently to James. He was probably worried about him. She was, as he was beginning to look flushed. It just made him look more beautiful though. And vulnerable. She wanted to protect him. She should, not the Doctor!

Rose tried to hear what they were saying, but caught the odd word and phrase that made no sense, “You should have let me...”

“I couldn’t, we need your mind clear...”

The wind whipped away the next bit, “...are on the pill?”

“No, I’m Catholic...”

Another long piece of the urgent conversation Rose couldn’t hear at all, then, “I’m not human...”

“I had guessed,” James had replied dryly.

“I mean I can function better during a heat. Besides, I injected myself with suppressants...”

“I’m taking them but look at me...”

“Let me know when...”

Rose missed a lot more as their voices dropped even lower, but straining, she caught James say, “...he can’t find out I’m an omega...”

The Doctor’s tone of reply was reassuring, but she couldn’t hear what he said. What, she wondered, was an omega?

 

~

 

Although the sky was still a brilliant bright sunny day like the evening they had arrived, the three men and Rose stopped to watch the moon rise. They had lost track of the group of aliens by then.

James was worse. He was even more flushed; he had pulled off his tie and jacket and loosened his collar, rolled up his sleeves, but was still hot. Rose could feel the heat radiating off him in waves. Lewis too had noticed the changes, he keep glancing worriedly at his sergeant, and sniffing him too. James shrank from every glare, shrinking into himself, ducking his head. It was James’ slowness that was holding them back.

Finally James’ legs buckled. Lewis took a step towards him, sniffing all the while. “Bloody hell James, you’re in heat. You’re a bloody omega. Why didn’t you tell me!”

The Doctor put himself between Lewis and James. Rose was amazed to notice that Lewis’ pupils were blown and she was fairly certain there was an erection sticking out of the front of his suit trousers. He seemed far too old for an embarrassing hard on and she started to laugh.

“Leave him,” the Doctor said. “Focus Inspector. We have to catch them before they kill again. Rose, take James home. Take him to the car as quickly as you can. Keys Inspector,” the Doctor held out his hand, still positioned between the Inspector and his sergeant.

“We’re miles from where we’re parked...” Rose began, not to mention she doubted she could remember the way back to the car park by the meadow.

“No, he’s mine,” Lewis was saying at the same time. “You’re just a...”

Rose had no idea what she was doing, she was angry at Lewis’ sudden change of personality, at his sudden dismissive attitude to the Doctor, whom he had respected and listened to – and not all police, investigators, army officer, or warriors were prepared to do that so quickly, acknowledge that what was happening was beyond their knowledge and give the authority to the Doctor, especially so quickly – and then, this...

Besides, Rose was concerned for James. He was burning up and shaking so badly he could barely stand.

He also smelt gorgeous!

Rose punched Lewis full in the face. Surprised, he fell back. He stumbled, and as he did so the Doctor moved like lightening and picked his pocket, tossing the car keys to Rose. As Lewis took a step towards Rose, snarling, balling his fists, the Doctor yelled,

“Run James! Go after him Rose. Take him home and look after him don’t let any men in and don’t let him out. Just nurse him through this. Okay?”

Rose nodded.

“I’ll wait for you at the TARDIS!” the Doctor called to her retreating back.

 

~

 

James, shaking, knew the quickest way, and so she let him lead, over a bridge over yet another river and into parklands and then back to the medieval and Victorian and back to St. Giles, which turned out not to be too far from where they had parked, although they had taken the long way there. Most men and a few women showed the same aggressive interest in James as Lewis had, but Rose kept her arm firmly around him, and learnt that a nasty glare was enough to make people back off, and if not a snarl of a growl seemed to work.

The Doctor was right; this was a completely different universe, with very different rules on what was acceptable behaviour!

 

~

 

When she got him inside his flat she suggested she got him to bed, got him out of his damp, sticky clothes – he was even wet down below, but it didn’t smell like he’d wet himself, quite the opposite, he was smelling better and better by the minute. Rose had meant to tuck him up in bed, sponge him down with a damp flannel for the temperature, find aspirin or whatever they had in this universe, get him water and a cup of tea, but instead she was pushing him on the bed, ripping his shirt off, and without thinking at all, was kissing the unresisting James, pushing him back on the bed, pulling at her own clothes...

She had never been in such a hurry.

James cried and protested they weren’t mated and he preferred men...

She ignored him. He didn’t resist.

Rose had no idea what had got into her...

 

~

 

Three days later Rose went slinking into the TARDIS feeling slightly ashamed of herself. James hadn’t protested after the first time. They had talked. She liked him. He wasn’t like anyone she had met. Clever, creative, gentle. Although she probably knew more that she ever wanted to know about chamber music!

“Oi you. Dirty all night stop out!” the Doctor said, bouncing down the steps from the console.

“Or three nights!” he corrected himself as they hugged.

“Sorry,” Rose said, hugging back. “I had to stay and look after him during the fevers. He was so hot.”

The Doctor took a step back and held her by her arms, looking at her. “You didn’t let any men in?”

“No.”

“Nor let him out.”

“No. I looked after him. Helped him. Through the heats...”

“Helped him? How?”

“Doctor!” Rose felt herself blush. “You know more than me about this universe...”

“Oh Rose. Rose Rose Rose! There was me worrying about precautions and my biology changing to match...”

“It’s all right. I’m on the pill, I’m not going to get...” Rose began as the Doctor took another step back and pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket with a flourish and waved it about her in sweeping, dramatic, arcs before interrupting.

“It’s not you we need worry about. Oh Rose. You’re an Alpha! I should have known. That’s brilliant! Brilliantly brilliant. No. Wait. James.”

“We don’t want a relationship. He knows I’m leaving Earth with you. He just wants to get back to normal, take the medication that stops it. He was worried about his boss.”

“Oh. I convinced him it was something the Tau Cetians did to him, not a permanent state.”

“Did you catch them?”

“Yes. The good Inspector wanted to take them to justice, of course, but I made him see how complicated it would be. I fixed their ship. It turned out that we were tracking the older male and the female who were tracking the young male. Once we realised we were all trying to stop the boy killing, we joined forces. He’d not been trained yet to control his violence, only hunt animals, not sentient species. It was his first transformation.”

“Will they punish him?”

“Ooh. I should think so. Don’t you? So, how about going back to our own universe?” the Doctor skipped up to the console and fiddled with a few levers and knobs before banging it with a hammer. The time rotor began to move and the TARDIS let out its loud wheezing-groan of dematerialization.

“That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask Doctor. You said travel between universes and dimensions was not possible anymore. Not since the end of the Time Lords? You said we got to the one where we left Mickey by accident. And the TARDIS had no power for 24 hours. The TARDIS is fine and here we are just leaving like any trip...”

The Doctor hid his pain in his eyes well; Rose suspected only she would see. She cursed herself for her lack of tact. However, he answered brightly,

“Ooh, this one is more of a pocket dimension, a fold away mini universe with our own. Besides, remember where we materialized.”

Putting aside folding pocket universes, Rose asked, “You mean Oxford?”

“Yes. A dimensional rift, dimension upon dimension folded up on each other, like a scrunched up page of a book, another universe just a step away, through a mirror, open a cupboard, fall down a hole, through a wall, walk around a corner... they are all there. Oxford is the dimensional nexus for all the multiverse. Didn’t you know that Rose? Haven’t you read a book?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few years later for both of them, possibly more for James than for Rose. Rose is travelling alone through dimensions and universes, looking for the Doctor, when she sees a familier figure...

Bang! The world, this world, the newest world, coalesced into something solid and real. Another reality. Would it be the right one? Would she find the Doctor? If not, any clues?

Any stars?

Rose stood on a street in daylight, soft, diffused spring morning daylight. She was getting good at telling the time by the sun’s position and the season by it’s quality. She stood on a street of Victorian workers cottages, two up, two down, a terraced row with a couple of alleys between them. At the end of the row were even smaller houses, newer built, probably in the late 1990s, early twenty-first century. Cars were parked on the roadside and some bumped up blocking the path. The sounds of a busy road came from behind her, along with birdsong and bells. Bells were ringing. Perhaps it was a Sunday?

No. Or if it was, in this universe schools opened on a Sunday. A group of teenagers in a uniform of grey trousers and logo-ed sweatshirts with a maroon blazer, the same logo on its pocket, approached her, a mixed group. The boys had been shoving and pushing each other, the girls behind, giggling. They slowed and fell into silence as they passed her.

“Morning,” she said brightly, a big grin on her face.

“Um, hi,” said one of the girls nervously, eyeing her gun with suspicion and fear.

Oh yeah. Always come prepared was Rose’s belief. Still, all was quiet here and the last thing she wanted was a call to the police, or whatever passed for the police in this reality. “Like my space gun? Good prop, eh? Been up all night making it. The director hated my last one. Convincing do you think?”

“You work at the Pegasus?” asked one of the girls shyly as the boys began to crowd around her.

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Totally convincing.”

“Great, thanks,” said Rose, smiling even more widely. “Off you go guys, don’t want to be late for school.”

Once they were out of eyesight Rose quickly dismantled the Cyber-killer and shoved the pieces quickly but very carefully in her back pack and walked in the opposite direction of the school kids and the sounds of traffic. She passed Mums with buggies and herds of small ones in checked summer dresses and shorts and white polo shirts, clutching book bags and brightly coloured lunch boxes emblazoned with cartoon warriors, aliens ponies or fairies.

People came out of houses in suits or smart summer dresses and cardigans and climbed into cars.

She had arrived in the rush hour somewhere in a reality remarkably similar to her own.

Rose turned a corner into a street narrower, tightly packed with cars. The houses were larger, bay windows and steps up the doors. Edwardian she thought. She was getting good at the snap shot recognition. It was important with such a short time in each reality to pin down differences and similarities in culture and technology as quickly as possible. She’d learnt that already, travelling with the Doctor. But then, it was for fun, then she had been just sight seeing, aimless. Then she had the TARDIS, to get her away. Then she had the Doctor.

She missed the Doctor.

They all needed the Doctor.

Rose paused, slipping instinctively behind a four by four with dirty windows. Opposite her a front door opened and a man in a grey suit and pink shirt was pushing out a double buggy, the type with one seat in front of the other. She recognized the tall, skinny form, although he seemed a little less thin that she remembered. His hair was longer too, enough to style in a rather messy little quiff. She was right; he did look good.

Of course, he might be a different one, not her James at all.

As he went back up the stairs having parked the buggy on the pavement, a small boy emerged from the door. He was about three, maybe a bit older, dressed in a blue and white striped t-shirt and demin shorts to his knee and white trainers that flashed as he jumped down the steps. James followed, two small boy backpacks and lunch boxes in his hands.

“Tom!” he called, putting the bags down on the top step.

“I’m not going anywhere!” the boy argued, climbing up the brick wall that separated the steps from the neighbouring house’s steps.

“I’m being good Daddy,” said a second little-boy voice. Another boy, almost identical, emerged and sat on the top step, swinging his legs. He was carrying a picture book. He was dressed identically except his stripes were red and white.

“Yes you are Will. Tom! Thomas! Get down from there!”

An old lady appeared in next-door’s window and banged on the window, gesturing for the child to get down.

Thomas slid of the wall and glared at the woman, sticking his tongue out. She flung the window open,

“Don’t you be rude to me young man.” She turned to James, now stowing the boys’ lunches and bags in the net below the buggy seats. “I’ve always said that unmated omegas have no right to bring up children alone! You can’t control them.”

“Leave my Daddy alone!” yelled Tom, balling his tiny fists; a determined look on his face that reminded Rose of a picture her Mum had a loved to embarrass her with. They had been trying to get her into a frothy bridesmaid dress, and she Would Not! She remembered hating that dress to this very day.

James muttered something under his breath, and then looked up and smiled, “I’m sorry if my son sitting on your wall is so offensive Mrs Sullivan. He won’t do it again. Say sorry Thomas.”

“Shan’t!”

With a rude humph Mrs Sullivan slammed her window shut.

“Thomas Robert Hathaway, that was rude.”

“Yeah. So?” Tom didn’t look at his father... mother...? Rose wasn’t sure. He was too busy spinning with his arms spread and his head tipped back, eyes on the sky. Meanwhile Rose’s head was spinning! All that the Doctor had explained to her about alphas and omegas in this universe, that his and her biology had changed, and it hadn’t been her getting pregnant that she needed worry about. But that was ages ago, and she hadn’t worried about James left behind, anymore than any other friend she had made on any planet, any time... well, for three days James had been more than just a friend... She focused on her... sons?

“So was Mrs Sulligan,” Will was saying, looking up from his picture book. Rose was sure a young James had probably sat, good as gold, reading books, from a young age too.

“Yes, I suppose so,” James replied, smiling down at his son. “Make sure your brother doesn’t get squashed by a car.” James went back up the steps and into the house. Will stood up and closed his book carefully before slowly ascending the steps holding on to their side of the dividing wall.

By the time James emerged with a brown leather shoulder bag and a black canvas laptop bag Will had climbed into the back seat of the buggy and Tom had just climbed all over the rest.

“Sit down Tom,” James said as he locked the door.

“Shan’t. Shall stand up on the step all the way. There’s a lady over there. She’s been watching us.”

Rose shrank back into the shadows.

“Don’t make up stories.”

“I’m not!” Tom cried indignantly, jumping off the buggy and running out into the street, nearly missing being hit by a car, but fortunately it was driving slowly and James grabbed him by the arm.

“Thomas!” James shrieked in a panic. “Right, I’ve had enough of you this morning young man!”

James wrestled the intractable child into his buggy seat and strapped him in; all the while Tom arched his back and screamed as if he were being murdered. Will started to sniffle in sympathy,

“There was a lady. There was a lady. Tom didn’t lie. He didn’t. I saw her too!”

James hung his bags on the handle and began to push, trying to ignore the screams and cries of both.

“We’ll be late now!” he said after a while of weaving through parked cars and side streets, going the other way from the sound of traffic until another busy road could be heard. Rose followed discreetly; trying to look for all the world she too knew what she was doing and where she was going on this busy morning. Where ever she had arrived was as colourful and as multi cultural as Peckham. People of all colours went past in suits, smart clothes, shop and coffee shop sweatshirts, and bright yellow over jackets of warehouses and factories, many with children in tow or in buggies. Asian women went by in brightly coloured shalwar kameezs and saris, and surprisingly so did two men, Omegas, she thought, Indian omegas. They looked less stressed, but then they obviously didn’t have to dump the children and go to work, culture again. The same as her own universe, not so much the one she had made her home. This universe made her home sick. She remembered how she had not believed the Doctor at first that they were somewhere else. Not until James had gone in heat...

He crossed the road just in time to see three buses all pull away! He looked like he wanted to swear. He squatted down and spoke to his boys. They calmed down. The noise of the traffic and not being able to get too close meant that Rose could no longer eavesdrop. She was paralysed with indecision. She had to follow, she had to see, to had to know... but what had James said to them? Obviously he was not married...mated... the cow of a neighbour had made that plain. The Doctor had assumed Lewis would ‘make an honest man of him’ and Rose knew James had been nursing a secret crush. But she also, from their conversations in-between heats, knew that James didn’t want to be owned and controlled, and the one difference that Rose could see in this society was an almost 1950s attitude to sex and marriage and a woman’s role that went back to the 1850s when applied to omegas. To be a single parent omega was a brave decision.

But James was a brave man, she and already seen that. He had flung himself in front of the Doctor. That spray to bring on heat and disrupt the chase had been aimed squarely at the Doctor – they knew who they had needed to get out of the way!

A bus came, overcrowded and a bit smelly. Two women in a Tescos uniform got up out of the buggy area and James manoeuvred the boys in. He stood to allow an elderly Sikh to sit in the one remaining folding seat in the area.

They passed a police station, not James’ in the centre of Oxford. Had he transferred then? Perhaps he had to? Perhaps he was no longer a policeman? She bet there was prejudice there.

He got out at the next stop. So did Rose, hidden in the waves of commuters getting on and off. So did the Tesco workers. She kept them in-between her and James and the boys, as they seemed to be going the same way.

Except they weren’t. The women continued but James turned into a primary school that was joined onto a larger secondary school. Children of all ages in green uniforms were mucking about. It was so normal.

James took a gate marked Daycare and then followed a path to a brightly painted terrapin.

“Can I help you?”

Rose turned to see a primly dressed older woman regarding her severely.

“No. No, it’s okay. I just dropped my cousins. I’ll be going now. My auntie is sick...” and Rose turned and backed away, ignoring questions of the names and classes of the cousins.

 

~

 

“Why are you following me?”

Rose looked up from the ground where she had been staring at nothing, after stepping back behind a bus shelter near the school when she noticed James come back out alone, with no twins or buggy.

“Well, I’m not, that is to say...”

“Rose!”

“Er, yeah, that’s me.” Rose grinned.

“You’re back. Here I mean. Is the Doctor here?”

After everything, the heat, left with twins, it was the Doctor he asked about? Rose felt she should be jealous, something, but she felt it was only natural. She felt surprising neutral about him, although he was gorgeous, still, even if he’d filled out slightly. He was still thin as a rake, but a healthy thinness, as opposed to his earlier unnaturally skinny form. Pregnancy would do that, she thought, still not quite believing it, despite all that the Doctor had explained, despite how like her the boys had looked, how they had her nose and mouth.

Right now, however, she felt no overwhelming desperation to protect him, to keep him. But of course, he wasn’t in heat. He was presumably rushing to work.

“No,” she said after looking at him for a while, thinking. He had stared right back, looking, if anything, nervous. “No, I’m not here with the Doctor. How did you know I was following? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“I’m a police officer, of course I noticed you. I wouldn’t upset my children.” He sighed and looked down at her. “Our children,” he muttered, correcting himself, his nervous look growing.

Did alpha women have more rights over their children that an omega male? Rose knew so little about this society, except that it was run for males, probably white, heterosexual ones that weren’t omegas. Women and omegas had fewer rights that women in her own world or the world she had made home. “Don’t worry,” she hurriedly reassured him, “I won’t take them away from you. I just... wanted to see them. I literally had just arrived here when I saw you come out of you house. I was just... they looked like me and...” Rose looked away.

“Arrived? How?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Are you staying?”

“For a while. I have to stay at least til tonight. I’m gathering evidence; well that’s one thing. I’m looking for the Doctor.”

“If he were here...”

“Yes?”

“Well, trouble follows the Doctor, I’m sure if he were here we would know. In CID, I mean.”

“What, if he were anywhere in the world?”

“Perhaps not the world, no. Look, shall we get a coffee or something? I’ll phone my boss, let him know I’ll be late.”

“Are you still with Inspector Lewis?”

“Yes.” He pulled his phone from his pocket.

“The Doctor said he might marry you, if I had...”

James snorted humourlessly. “He did want to. Look, let me ring and let him know... actually, shall I ask him to look on the system, see if the Doctor or Doctor-like activity is logged anywhere in the UK and Europe? He had higher clearance that me, he might be able to check Interpol too. Of course, if he involved with a military organization we won’t know...”

“Yeah, thanks. That would be great.” Rose smiled up at him. A small twitch of a smile answered it.

 

~

 

“Are you sure you want chips and coke for breakfast?" James checked again as he put the tray down in a quiet corner of the open plan cafe in the middle of the shopping centre a short walk from the Catholic school.

Rose was getting fed up with his sniffy, middle class, health conscious disapproval. “Yeah. Perfectly sure.” She picked one up, and bit into it, hot as it was. “These are great. Like proper chips at home. In all the universes, this one is the closest you know. To home. Well except for some men here, you know, having babies...”

“It’s perfectly normal. I’m trying to get my head round a universe where there are no omegas. Do I still exist? And if I do, am I... what?”

“I don’t know. Just a guy I would think. Probably gay.”

“Gay?”

“Oh yeah, you don’t quite label things like us, do you? Look, what if too regular guys, I mean, like an alpha and a beta, or two beta, or two women, what if they fell in love?”

James frowned. “It’s a sin. It’s against the law. I had a friend once...” a look of pain came over James’ face and he faltered. Rose picked up his hand for a moment and squeezed his fingers,

“It’s fine. I don’t have time to talk about differences. Where I am now, I... Look, we both have news and not much time. Who should go first? “

James picked up his latte and sipped slowly. He placed it down and sighed. “I don’t know. Are you here for a while and will you come back, tell me that.”

“I’m not here for long, no, and no, I can’t come back. Once I’ve found the Doctor, once we’ve got this... if we get this sorted... 'Course, if we don’t, it won’t matter much. Tell me about Tom and Will. I heard you say Thomas Robert Hathaway. He seems like a real handful. Will seems quieter, head in a book. I bet you had your head in a book as a little boy. My Mum says I was a right handful.”

James smiled. “Tom’s not so bad, just energetic. He’s just as clever as Will, wanting to know everything, try everything out. Will – William Peter...”

“Peter?”

“Do you mind? I wanted something... Not that I knew that your father would be called Pete Tyler...”

“Is he alive? In this reality?” Rose’s voice was so wistful with hope James replied gently,

“No, I’m sorry. He was killed. Hit and run. When you – that is, the other Rose, was quite small.”

“Where does she live? Did you look her up?”

“Yes, when I was expecting. I.. I don’t know what I hoped. Things were hard. I had been suspended and...”

“Suspended?”

“I think it might be best if I start at the beginning, don’t you? Tell you all that happened after you left?” James said, adding uncertainly, “If you want to know, that is?”

“Yeah! Of course I do! You can’t imagine how weird it is for me, you see, in my universe if I was to have kids I’d be the one pregnant. Now I see two lovely boys who look like me a bit and I know they’re mine but it’s hard to get my head round. Really. And what you told me, about attitudes to single omega parents; I don’t know what you’ve been through. I’m so sorry James...”

“It’s okay.” He picked up her hand and held it between hers. “I’m okay. We’re okay. I will tell you it all, in a proper order, but first, what do you mean, you’re living in a reality not your own and travelling to others. And why do you need to find the Doctor. Is it to do with the stars?”

“Stars?”

“They’re vanishing. By the week, by the day now, according to the news this morning. Experts have all sorts of guesses. The church tells us it’s the end of time.”

“Our universe – that is, the one I’m stuck it, it seems to run ahead of the other realities. We’ve built this kind of dimension canon. It’s sending me to warn other places and to research, to learn as much as I can. But mostly, to find the Doctor. He doesn’t have to be mine, he can be another incarnation, another version in another reality. But we need the Doctor. The whole multiverse needs him!”

“Yes. Yes he does.” James pulled out his phone and began to type.”

“What are you doing?”

“Stressing to Inspector Lewis how if he can find information for you he must, even if he has to break a few rules.”

“Thank you James.”

Rose ate her chips and drank her coke while James sipped his coffee and twitched like a man desperate for a smoke. The place was filling up; it was so not the Oxford she had visited before.

“Where are we?”

“Cowley centre.”

“Oh. It’s so... ordinary.”

“Oxford does do ordinary, outside the medieval colleges in the city centre. Cowley was once home to the Morris Car Factory, and there’s been one ever since. BMW minis now. Is it frightening?”

“What?”

“Being shot – sent – by this dimension canon. Not knowing where you’ll end up? What if...?”

“It’s already ceased to exist? No, our universe is the furthest ahead, and Earth is safe, even there, for now.”

“How did you end up there? You told me you couldn’t go back. That your friend was trapped there.”

“He chose to stay.” Rose paused and looked at the counter across the cafe. “I’d love a doughnut.”

“And you didn’t? Is that what you mean?”

“There was... a sort of war, the things we had been fighting found a way through, and there was a battle and I was sort of... sucked through. I’d have never left the Doctor otherwise! Never!”

James looked Rose sadly, a sad look of understanding, of loving and loving and never being noticed, of unrequited, painful love. “No,” he said gently. “I’ll get you that doughnut. More coke too?”

“Ta.”

 

~

 

“I went back to work after you left. My boss had coded it injured in the line of duty. The Doctor had convinced him I was the beta I pretended to be, that the aliens had done something weird to my biology. Everything was fine. And then...”

“Well, and then I knew I was... I was immediately suspended. The police will only take unmated omegas on suppressants, and then I don’t think one has ever made it to CID or made it to sergeant.”

“You did.”

“Well, I was pretending to be a beta. What? What are you smiling at?”

“I just remembered something.”

“What?”

“In my universe women have been fighting for equal rights for hundreds of years.”

James frowned a little, puzzled. “But you said...?”

“Now. Yes. But it took years and years. The thing that made me smile was back in the early Victorian times this respected doctor died and the autopsy showed that he was a she. She had cross-dressed so she could get a medical degree and be a doctor.”

“No, wait, that’s not the same as me...”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m not interested in getting all political, all involved with omega rights. I just... wanted to be a priest. When that wasn’t allowed and the church promised to not reveal me I thought I would...”

“Are you still in CID? Still a DS?”

“Well, yes, but...”

“So, you have achieved something good, and not just for you. If they let you back then you’ve opened the way for others, haven’t you?”

James looked down at the table. “It’s the Doctor,” he said, “he can make you brave.”

Rose grinned widely. “Yes. Yes he does. Tell me more.”

“Lewis fought for me. He argued all the while that I had thrown myself in front of a gun, prepared to die, to protect a civilian expert. I didn’t know it was going to wipe out the suppressant and trigger an unnatural heat. I was prepared to die in the line of duty, but instead I got pregnant, but it was still in the line of fire.”

“He won?” Rose smiled, remembering the grumpy, but very clever, inspector.

“Yeah,” James smiled at her. “He won.”

“Good. But to couldn’t have been easy?”

“My church offered to help, but they... they wanted me to go into a home and have my twins adopted. I could never do that! I even... no...”

“What?”

“I found you. The other you. I don’t know what I was thinking. As if I could turn up and say hi, you and from another reality made me pregnant so please made an honest man of me.”

“What am I like?”

“I went up to Peckham in London, saw her from afar. I didn’t speak to her. She looks the same, but less... happy? Relaxed? Open? Yes, open. Less opened-minded and intelligent. She works in a shop in the west end, is mated to an omega called Mickey. They have a daughter. She’s four. She lives in a flat on the Powell Estate, two flights below her Mum, Jackie. She seemed happy, but I couldn’t imagine you...”

Rose shuddered, thinking of that other Rose, of what she and Mickey would have become without the Doctor, dead end jobs in a dead end estate; dead end lives. Of course, she would have been the one to get pregnant, but other than that it was all too depressingly imaginable.

“Then what?” she asked hurriedly, wanting to push depressing thoughts of those Roses and Mickeys doomed to the ordinary, the boring...

“My suspension was turned to maternity leave on full pay. But as soon as my landlord found out he evicted me – he said I would lower the morality of his building. Robbie – Lewis, my boss, he helped me find the house I’m in now. I rent it, but it’s a struggle, the rent and the childcare take nearly all my salary.”

“Can’t afford designer suits anymore then?” Rose teased, thinking of his old, pristine flat, his expensive clothes and posh food. Of course she had had a nose about when he slept!

“No. But I wouldn’t want to be without them. They are the best things to ever happen to me. I never thought I could be a parent, I was so scared of being mated, of being controlled...”

Rose put her hand over his. He held it tightly in his own. “I’m not here to stay. I’m not going to take them away. Or anything. I don’t want to confuse them. I can’t stay...”

“The Chief has you listed as missing. Did you know the Doctor has a file? She got my status changed to widowed. It’s how I can still go to church, they can go to St Gregory’s...”

“It doesn’t surprise me that. You’d be amazed at some of the realities I’ve been, all I’ve seen. But most have a Doctor. Or the same Doctor. I have to find him. Even while I’m in your universe I can’t stay.”

“Can you stay one night? Meet the boys? They would love to...”

“James. You’re a widower remember. I can’t... just show up. It will confuse them. And to be honest, it will hurt... I’ve seen them; I know they exist. I’m a mother! If I talked to them, got to know them, I would never leave them. And I have to. The stars...”

“Yes. You must. For all of us.”

They looked intensely into each other’s eyes. Rose remembered being impressed how quickly he had grasped all the Doctor had explained right at the beginning. How clever and open-minded he was.

“What do you tell them? About me?” Rose asked finally.

“That their mother was a beautiful brave lady called Rose from another world, like Narnia or Wonderland and came with a Magic Man called the Doctor in a Magic Blue Box to save the world.”

“Well, I am trying to do my best here!” but Rose grinned. “And then I got back in the blue box and disappeared.”

“Yes. The nursery, the child-minder, everyone at church, they smile and tell me how sweet it is to make up stories for my children and have I considered writing fantasy. They boys are getting older enough to over-hear and one day Will asked if it was all a story and did I just get attacked when I was in heat. It was horrible to hear his sad little voice.”

“So what did you do?”

“I told him the world is not allowed to know about the Doctor. Now, at bedtimes we whisper to each other –‘it’s really, really true!’ so, you see; if you could meet them...”

“I can’t...”

“Afterwards. Come back to us afterwards. When you’ve saved the whole multiverse!”

“James, the thing is...”

“Of course, when you’ve found him, you won’t want me or the boys, or your friend in your new universe. He was called Mickey too, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t think my Mickey would be an omega if he came here. I think he’d probably be an alpha too. We fight too much. There was another him, but called Ricky, and Mickey replaced him... yes James, you’re right. And it’s not fair on me, or the boys really, for me to see them just once...”

James looked down. “No, I know you’re right.”

“What about you and Inspector Lewis. You love him, not me. You said he proposed.”

“He still does, from time to time. But...”

“But, you don’t want to be owned?”

“Inspector Lewis had an old-fashioned marriage. If I were to accept him, yes my boys would get a father, but I’d lose my career.”

“Why? You’re managing now aren’t you?”

“It’s a struggle, and I have a very accommodating boss. I also have an amazing child-minder – she picks them up at day care at 5 and is contracted to keep them to 6 but she’ll keep them on, at double time, for hours into the evening if there is a body. If there’s a shout in the middle of the night, unless Robbie really wants my opinion, he covers for me, and if not, I stick them in car seats and they sleep in the back of his car. I don’t know how much longer we can keep doing that. Robbie says he’s retiring soon and...”

“There you are then.”

“But with Mrs Lewis...”

“That was then. For society to change people have to first. If he is prepared to be there for our boys while you work, take it, and I know how you feel about him James.”

“But... but...”

“What? You have a case of the yeah, buts, always looking for an excuse. What are you so afraid of? Explain it to me like I’m an alien from another universe.” Rose grinned widely and James snorted a little in humour, ducking his head and lowering his eyelashes at her.

“If I were mated I would be expected to come off the heat suppressants, and then... well, I would never go on the pill. There would be babies after babies. I love Tom and Will, but I couldn’t cope with lots. Nor could Robbie, not at his age...”

“I really don’t much about this place’s biology, so you have to help me out here,” Rose lowered her voice. James leant across the table to hear. “But you can have sex, without going into heat, right? You can make-love then, can’t you, coz you want to, and not coz you have to and...”

Rose could tell by the look in James’ eyes, it was being possessed by an alpha male during heats that terrified him as much as the risk of pregnancy, however much he loved and trusted his boss. He nodded slowly as he sat back up. He then flinched in horror as they heard a voice,

“I guessed you’d be here. You ever coming back to work or what? Hello Miss Tyler.”

“Hi Inspector Lewis. How did you guess we’d be here?”

“Nearest coffee shop to the boys’ day care and nursery. Can I get either of you another drink? Been researching for you all morning,” Robbie Lewis said pointing to Rose, as he sat down, showing no signs of buying a drink.

“And?”

“No sign on him on any data base the Chief and I could access – and Innocent has M16 connections, and I have one or two favours in the military I can call on. No reported sighting of the Doctor or the TARDIS in any form for four years, and that was you.”

Rose sighed sadly.

“But I’ve been asked to escort you to UNIT HQ.”

“What’s that?” James asked.

“Dunno meself,” Lewis replied cheerfully, although James could tell he was hiding his anger. “Innocent made some calls and then received one from these people asking her to ask Rose Tyler: is it the stars. Is it?”

“Yes,” Rose replied.

Lewis pulled out his phone and dialled a number. “It’s a yes Ma’am. Fine. Ten minutes.” He ended the call and pocketed his phone. “Rose,” he said gently, “there’s a squad car on its way from the station to take you to this research base.”

“No!” James grabbed her hands.

“I have to gather data, remember, as well as find the Doctor. I have now about 19 hours unless I cancel the dimension recall. And thanks to Lewis, I don’t need to stay here, I can go on to the next dimension.”

James let go and arranged his features carefully in a more neutral mask she remembered from when she met him. “I know.”

“I’ll get you a coffee James. And some cake. Yeah?” Lewis stood and walked across the cafe to the counter.

Rose stood too. James wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her. “Don’t go,” he mumbled. “Just see Tom and Will, please.”

Rose stroked his hair. “I can’t. I have to go.” She carefully held his the sides of his head in her hands and pulled his face away from her and looked into his eyes a moment before kissing him gently on the top of his head. “Maybe, in some universe, we are together, and happy, yeah?” She was struggling not to cry herself. She gently removed his arms from her waist and stood back out of his long reach.

James nodded sadly. “Good luck,” he said.

Rose nodded, and turned to see Lewis returning with a latte, a pot of tea and cup, and two cream cakes. He placed the tray on the table, looking sadly at James.

“I’ll escort you to the car Miss Tyler.”

Out of the shopping centre he handed her an envelope. “I printed these off before I came out. Thought you might like them.” He opened the back of the police car for her and she climbed in. He slammed the door and the young officer pulled the car back out into the traffic, immediately putting on the lights and sirens, barely giving her time to belt up.

As they sped on their way to this universe’s UNIT, Rose opened the envelope. It was full of pictures of the twins, starting with very tired and dazed but happy looking James with two new born infants, one in each arm. Tom and Will aged and grew from babies to toddlers to the two little boys she had seen for the first and only time only a few hours ago. But she didn’t see the pictures; they were too blurry through the film of tears on her long, mascara-ed eyelashes.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry Ms Piper and Mr Fox.


End file.
